The worst salesman in the world

Tuesday morning I was sitting in the backyard working on my WIPs and drinking coffee (I know – I lead such an exciting life).

Behind me at the driveway gate I heard someone call out, ‘Excuse me!’

Both dogs barked like they were going to eat someone, but in reality they just thought another toy-throwing victim had arrived.

I turned around to see a tall young man holding a clip-board. I told him to go to the front door so the dogs wouldn’t eat him (liar, liar, pants on fire).

He was wearing a cap over short blonde hair and had a nose that looked a bit like a gherkin (I notice these things). He had neat long shorts (not the ones that hang down to reveal the bum crack – so that was a plus), a nice collared polo shirt and clean runners with short white socks.

Here’s how the conversation went –

Him – Good morning

Me – Good morning

Him – How are you today

Me – Good

Him – I’m not here to ask for money

Me – Good

Him – This is my first day at this

Me – Congratulations

Him – Thank you

Me – {Waiting silently for him to do his spiel}

Him – Did you take the day off work?

Me – I’ve retired from my day job

Him – I see

Me – {Waiting silently for him to do his spiel}

Him – Do you ever go to the beach?

Me – No (liar, liar pants on fire)

Him – Oh, okay. Well I guess this isn’t for you

Me – I guess not then

Him – Okay

Me – have a nice day and good luck

Door closed

I felt a bit sorry for him as he went from door to door down the street. What was he trying to sign people up to? It’s certainly got me beat…

Below is a famous artist’s impression of what he looks like.

If you know this guy, please give him some advice on how to sell his wares (whatever they may be).

Because this character was so confusing I thought I’d write about him for the weekly challenge – characters

My mom had a salesperson call her house and ask for my dad. Since he passed away in 2006, my mom replied that he was deceased. The salesperson responded by saying thank you, and they would call back tomorrow. Apparently the script in their binder didn’t cover death!!

That’s brilliant. Poor lad. I do love to confuse salesmen. My latest tactic is to try to sell things back to them.
Salesperson ‘HI, we are offering a promotion in your area. Are you interested in buying new windows?’
Me ‘Are you interested in buying a new kitchen?’
Salesperson ‘erm . . .’

Hehe, sounds a bit like a weirdo to me. Perhaps he was just sussing out the new neighbour. Did you check to see if he went to other houses? I’m trying to connect the beach to something requiring a survey, but …

We get religious people knocking on our door sometimes. I open the door and ask which religion. They tell me and I say sorry, wrong religion, have a nice day and close the door. I might appear rude, but isn’t knocking on my door also rude?

I’m sure the photo will help them. 🙂 Oh, I just worked it out. He was organising a car pool to the beach to save on fuel. Of course, he can’t drive himself as he has a severe case of epilepsy, but he goes to the beach every weekend because his son’s a nipper (surf life saving) …

There’s really nothing worse than a stranger coming to your door. I spoke to him through the locked screen. I write too many murder stories to ever trust that ‘normal’ looking people are trustworthy. If he is a serial-killer I’ve got the picture to show the police! LOL 😀

Gherkin nose… love it… I’m assuming shape not colour…
Hilarious recount of a very weird encounter, and possibly character. What on earth could he be selling for the beach? Maybe after he found out you were ‘retired’, he figured you wouldn’t be spending up big. Do timeshare apartments sell door to door like they do on Cavill Ave in Surfers I wonder? Did you not even let the dogs have a sniff?
I have a favourite memory of a furaphobic insurance salesman sitting arms & knees clenched to his body, on the couch amid our 2 rottweilers and 2 cats who had strategically placed themselves around him, staring, waiting… Same guy made the mistake of assuming later he could come into the yard and onto the porch unescorted, reconsidered quickly in one leap over the front fence as a rottie hit the inside of the screen door with full force…

He seriously wouldn’t have had a chance with the dogs. A rottweiler and german shepherd. They’re friendly and want to play if they know I’m comfortable with a person, but I wouldn’t trust them to be so nice if they thought I was in trouble 😯

I love ‘furaphobic’ – what a great word! Your rottie did a great job scaring him away like that – this is why I absolutely love my dogs (or most dogs), they’re absolute champions when it comes to keeping strangers in their place.

I really don’t know what he was selling at the beach – although Maddie suggested it may have been my ‘towel hat’! LOL 😀

I could just picture this guy awkwardly conversing with you,you did an amazing descriptive job and my image of him matched the stick figure I can tell you. As for the conversation I think you dodged a bullet. As painful as it was for both of you, thanks for sharing I learned something from you on how to rid myself of nuisance salesman in the future. Great blog that certainly put a smile on my face 🙂

Actually, Dianne, you got played. He wasn’t selling anything. He just wanted to get more social media exposure. Now his photo and nose have become household names.
I love how his opening line after “how are you?” is “I’m not here to ask for money.” I wonder if that is in the script. You were so gracious, yet funny in your responses–good/congratulations. You would make a great first date.
I love how you take ordinary daily events and turn them into hilarious, intriguing stories. Thanks for being the one and only you. {{{Hugs}}} Kozo

I’ve had all sorts of salespeople knocking on my door since we moved in selling everything from religion to housecleaning. And I love it when the first thing they say is “I’m not selling anything”. Yeah, right, and I’m the Queen of Sheba!

Maybe it’s a new sales tactic to hook the potential buyer’s interest, albeit one that didn’t work on you. My curiosity would have totally gotten the better of me; I’d insist upon knowing what he was selling (most likely to my own detriment, though, since I actually can’t stand it when people try to sell me things).

I hadn’t thought of that, Janna. Maybe it’s the ‘new psychology of sales’ – the salesman comes to your door and then tells you that you probably wouldn’t be interested in what he has got on offer. D’oh! I totally missed that one. LOL 😀

I’m pretty sure the portrait isn’t by Gerhard Richter: too realistic. Actually, I have a sales story. We once succumbed to a “free gift” offer, that was preceded by a sales call. We sat through a young man trying to sell a vacuum cleaner that “absolutely everyone must have, or their health is in danger.” At the end of his spiel, I asked him if he owned one. He said he couldn’t afford one, and I said neither could we. We had to send in a voucher for the prize. We tossed it.

Maybe he had a plot of swamp to sell you on the beach. 🙂 I’ll never forget the two nice clean cut Jehovah’s guys who took one look at my then shepherd/collie, perched themselves right at the edge of the steps down and pleaded, ‘please don’t release the dog’. Little did they know he would have licked them to death and gladly handed over the ‘family silver’ if given a friendly pat on the head.

(That said Sam did growl and raise hackles at the taxi driver who appeared at midnight one night and insisted my son had ditched his cab without paying. My son was 9 months old and laying in his crib at the time which I politely explained, but when he got obnoxious I told him to get off my doorstep or I’d call the police. Sam looked positively ferocious at that time. Had never seen that side of him.)

It’s amazing how protective our ‘cute’ dogs become when they think you may be in danger. I certainly wouldn’t trust my two if anyone was aggressive towards me. One night hubby walked through the kitchen and slapped me on the butt – my Shepherd grabbed his hand (not sinking his teeth in or anything, just gripped it) which was a warning that he didn’t like the way I was slapped. Good on him I say – I hate bum slapping! 😉

What a completely rude cab driver. You must have been half scared to death (I know I would have been!) Yikes! 😯

It was hard to hear him over the dogs. They are both big and have big barks so I had to go around to the front door to hear what he was saying (having said that, I did leave the back door slightly ajar in case they needed to get in quickly!)

What a post, and the comments, as usual, just have me going this morning! I need coffee to go with them all, and we could all sit around just swap stories about big noses and sales people. I actually have both – the nose and the stories. Back in the 70s when they still had door to door salespeople here, I used to BE one!!! My most bizzarre experience was the ugly woman that came to the door in her blanket. (I sold Parents Magazine). I gave her my opening spiel and she let me in. We sat on her couch, and I started in . Her blanket kept slipping. Ooops, too far. She wasn’t a woman! He got up to get a cigarette, I kept frantically talking to the end of my canned speech. His blanket flapped in the breeze as he walked. Kind of fat! More than bum crack showing… Me, nervously talking, not smart enough to know how to get out of this. He came back, sat back down on the couch next to me again.

Me: “How does that sound to you, fair enough?”

Him: “I’m not interested.”

Me: “OK, thanks for your time,” I moved as quickly as possible to the front door and let myself out. I bet he had a good laugh! I never forgot him!!! I don’t remember if he had a big nose, though!

Yick! That’s one unattractive man/woman! I could never sell door to door because I’m actually quite shy (hard to believe I know!) I really don’t like talking to strangers and often get tagged as a ‘snob’ – but it’s not snobbiness, it’s just that I’m nervous around people I don’t know. This is one of the reasons I don’t do ‘store book signings’ I couldn’t think of anything worse 😦

Kudos to you, my friend for having the guts to sell door to door! You’re certainly a lot braver than me 😀

Obviously, this poor lad had no training at all and was thrown to the wolves–in your case, hungry dogs. I bet he was holding onto his clipboard like a security blankie, too, wasn’t he? I know the type. Oh, and by the way — love the drawing by the world famous artist! Barb

Poor guy! He sounds exactly like how I would be if I were selling things door to door. Whenever someone knocks on my door I get my cranky face on, I always feel bad when it is a neighbor bringing something by (like last night! – ooops).

I once had a telemarketer call me … and then put me on hold. I was so intrigued that I put the phone on speaker phone and cooked dinner while I waited for them to return. When they finally came back about ten minutes later, they started into their sales speech without a word of apology. Unfortunately, the actual sales pitch was much less interesting than their put-you-on-hold opening salvo, so I had to hang up.

You were generous with your time. I just answer the door and say I’m sorry, I don’t speak to people at the door. I need to get one of those ‘No Hawker’ signs but then I just think: what 20-year-old Irish backpacker will know what ‘hawker’ means. If you have ‘No Salespeople’ they’ll say: But I’m not a salesperson. They have increased, I get at least one a week.

Hilarious!!! But I am so intrigued about what he was selling. And really – who can believe someone who says they never go to the beach, or accept it without thinking they have to persuade them otherwise…
On another note, have you read that Flannery O’Connor short story about the bible salesman? It’s one of my favourites 😉

Caller ID is the best invention since sliced bread! It was pretty hard to avoid him because he could see me sitting in the yard (that’s where I do all my writing) 😉 But I still don’t know what he was trying to sell me 😯

I’ve heard similar. I like polite, but Zig Ziegler needs to have a chat with your boy. The worst salesman I ever had darken my door told me how ‘rich people’ (him not knowing my husband is unemployed and I teeter on the fence of solvency) should buy this. Even Zig couldn’t help that guy.

I think it’s so much worse when they’re so desperately pushy (to the point of being rude). Zig definitely needs to talk with the lad that knocked on my door. He’ll end up starving to death if he’s relying on this job for income 😯

I always feel so sorry for youngsters- it could have been my son! He started his “career” by selling double glazing as a travelling salesman. It lasted 6 weeks and he was more in debt when he finished than when he started.

I think people take advantage of these young ones and send them out making them think they’re going to make a lot of money. I did a sales job (telephone) when I was young and worked full time for two weeks and only made two dollars! It is such a rip-off. I think of my kids as well when I see these people so I’m never rude to them. Normally I just say I’m not interested, but I couldn’t in this case because he never told me what he was selling…poor guy!

Boy! This post takes me back 4 years, when I was still in school! My sister and her best friend had come over to my place to bunk for the night. Turns out my father had ordered pizza, and we didn’t know about it. So, there he was. At our doorbell, in time (to avoid the 30-minute-or-free deal, obviously :P) I opened the door, and I tried convincing him that we hadn’t ordered the pizza. After about 20 minutes of frustrating his bones off, he gave me the pizza and gave a terrifying shriek I can still recall till today. It could say: “Just take the pizza. Take it. I don’t want your money! God! Kill me!”
I know it has got NOTHING to do with salespersons, but the post just clicked and ignited that old memory spark – Just sharing 🙂 😀

Such a strange interaction! He tried the tactic to get you to say ‘yes’ to something- any question so you’d be more receptive to his speech and more inclined to respond favorably. Poor guy!

I remember a sales call I got when I lived in an apartment. The guy asked me if I owned a home. I gave him the honest answer – “no” (because it was rental.) He got angry and said, “What do you live in a cardboard box?” and then he hung up on my before I could tell him I had the only box with a phone line.

I never realised he wanted to me to give a ‘yes’ answer – it all makes sense now, Janna! If I had said ‘yes’ to anything then his pre-memorised speech would have kicked in. Your comment has flicked the lightbulb on in my brain! You are very clever 😀

I find it so rude when those telemarketers hang up on you. That happened to me when one rang me and told me there was a problem with my computer. I told him I didn’t have a computer and he yelled at me, called me a liar and then hung up. I wasn’t lying because I actually didn’t have a computer at the time! 😯

Haha! Dianne! Oh now, you’ll forever wonder what that poor guy was trying to sell!! HA! And I loved “the Artists rendering!’ Haha! I remember once there was some guy in the neighborhood who was outside the house and I glanced out the window. Apparently he was wanted by the police and a later that day a policeman came by to question the neighbors about him. I explained to the policeman that I had only seen him for a second and had just glanced out the window at him — and then I went on in great detail to explain exactly what he looked like and what he was wearing. I remember the police officer being quite amazed at my observations. I didn’t know it then, but I guess that was the writer coming out in me! Ha!

Okay Maggie – you’ve won the day. This is such a simple explanation! Occam’s Razor “…among competing hypotheses, the one that makes the fewest assumptions should be selected”.
I don’t know why that didn’t occur to me and I think you’re right! 😀